


if i was born as a black thorn tree (i'd wanna be felled by you, held by you)

by blueblueelectricblue



Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Accidents, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bed-Wetting, Diapers, Diverges after Infinity War, Hurt/Comfort, I think this also might count as Shrinkyclinks?, M/M, No Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, Non-Sexual Age Play, Wetting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-13
Updated: 2019-05-13
Packaged: 2020-03-02 11:02:39
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,246
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18809755
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blueblueelectricblue/pseuds/blueblueelectricblue
Summary: Thanos dies, but not before he gets in a solid fuck-you to the Avengers by taking away what made Steve Rogers Captain America. Steve has a hard time adjusting to his new body, which is actually his old body. Good thing Bucky's here to help as he finds an unusual coping mechanism.An AU that's compliant with MCU canon through Infinity War. No Avengers: Endgame spoilers! I started writing this before I saw the movie, and I decided to stick with my version because I like it better.





	if i was born as a black thorn tree (i'd wanna be felled by you, held by you)

**Author's Note:**

> I regret that I didn't save the link to the Tumblr post when I saw it a few weeks ago, but this fic was inspired by a work of fan art depicting Steve mid-change as Thanos takes away the super-soldier serum, looking afraid but still in fighting position. You probably know the one. I couldn't help myself and just started plotting as soon as I saw it.

Winning the war against Thanos almost feels anticlimactic, even in the moment that it happens. It’s probably because his end is so unceremonious; Gamora and Nebula come from behind to use Thor’s axe in tandem to saw off his head. Meanwhile, Carol, Pepper, and Tony distract him with a targeted assault as Rhodey and Steve try to yank off the Infinity Gauntlet.

Thanos’s death may be unceremonious, but it isn’t as quick as they’d hoped for, as his neck is gigantic; the gauntlet is nearly off when he manages to point at the group and do – _something_. It’s like a little waggle of his fingers, sort of.  Rhodey, Tony, and Pepper zip up and away as Carol tries to yank Steve out of the smoke-like stream of magic that the gauntlet emits, but she’s a split second too late. The gauntlet drops to the ground just before Thanos does.

The serum’s Vita-Ray activation back in ‘43 had been agonizing; Steve’s body went from 5’4” and 95 pounds to 6’2” and 240 pounds in a matter of seconds. Now, the serum’s deactivation in that same amount of time is even more excruciating. Steve can’t stop himself from screaming, stars exploding neon in the black of his squeezed-shut eyes. He would collapse from the pain, but Carol now has a strong grip on him, although she almost loses it when his wrist shrinks to half its previous size before she can react. He can see Gamora and Nebula hugging each other, the bloody axe discarded on the ground next to their father’s head. But it’s as if the rest of the team has frozen to the ground. Even Tony’s silent, which is ominous unto itself.

“Holy  _shit_ ,” Carol breathes, and Steve realizes that he’s looking _up_ at her.

And he can’t breathe.

 _Oh no. Oh, god. Please…_ Steve thinks, yanking off his now too-big helmet and trying to suck in as much air as possible.

Of course, that’s when a huge portal opens up in the air next to Bruce, glowing gold and shimmering with energy. Hundreds, if not thousands, of lost loved ones come spilling through. Everyone more or less stops paying attention to Steve and his new-old body, rushing to meet the horde. Carol, however, waits until he’s sitting on a tree stump to finally let go of his arm.

He wants to tell her to go and find her people, but the words won’t come; he’s too busy trying to get oxygen into his lungs. Steve had almost forgotten what this feels like after several years of no asthma attacks, and it’s more terrifying than he remembers. It’s a real fight to keep down the panic, which only makes things worse — that, he _does_ remember. Even as Steve is focusing on staying calm and getting oxygen into his airway, he’s looking for Bucky and Sam, wondering if maybe they won’t appear after all. It wouldn’t be the first time someone died on him and never came back.

But they _do_ come back, Sam first and then Bucky, the two of them practically skidding to a stop in front of Steve. Carol had waved them over with a small explosion from her fists and then tactfully withdrawn. Sam doesn’t seem to register the change right away, but Bucky does, and his relieved expression changes instantly to something Steve can’t quite pinpoint.

“Steve, we—” Sam cuts himself off mid-sentence, his own expression concerned. “Holy fuck, man. What happened? I mean, I can figure it out, but. Jesus. What _happened_ while we were gone?”

Bucky kneels down next to Steve, studying him intensely now that they’re on the same level.

“Oh, _shit_ , Bucky, he’s having an asthma attack.”

Bucky takes his hand, squeezing it hard. “It’s gonna be okay, Steve, you’ll be okay.” And to Sam, “Can you get someone? I don’t want to leave him.”

Steve’s vision starts to go dark around the edges, and he struggles harder than ever for breath as Bucky grabs him around the shoulders to keep him from falling over. “Sam, _now_!”

Sam shoots up into the air, his mechanical wings unfurling into their long-missed majesty. “Bruce! Stephen! Get over here!” Steve hears him bellow just before he loses consciousness.

\--

A few weeks later, once things have settled down enough to hold a formal Avengers meeting, the team comes to a unanimous decision that Sam should take over as Captain America. Steve’s glad for that, being able to give this to someone far worthier than himself. Even if he hadn’t been forced back into his old body, he wouldn’t want to do it anymore. There’s so much pressure and so much stress, and Steve’s perversely almost happy to have the excuse of his heart possibly exploding to keep the job out of his hands.

Steve’s content to relegate himself to planning and strategizing, offering remote support to missions when needed. Tony even makes him an official Avengers consultant, complete with a 401K and benefits. It’s a dumb-sounding job title, but he takes it because he can’t live off his army pension forever. The job pays _obscenely_ well, even for New York.

Also, Sam is amazing at being Captain America. It helps, Steve thinks, that Tony had made a pair of wings to go with the suit that enable him to fly faster, farther, and higher than he’d been able to do previously. The suit itself is also a high-tech marvel, but Sam’s most thrilled with the boosted navigation and support system in the helmet and goggles. It’s not exactly the same uniform Steve wore, with a lot more white and black in it, and very sleek. Steve gets a big kick out of watching Sam on the news – and he’s on it a _lot_. It’s as though Steve’s tenure as Captain America never happened at all after a little while. Sam’s far more natural when it comes to personal interactions, and his experience as an Air Force medic and a VA therapist only enhance that. And boy, does he look _great_ holding that shield.

Steve just wishes that he could have kept his good health, because of course, that’s all been undone now. Modern medicine does help somewhat, for which Steve’s grateful. The anemia and ulcers are easy enough to treat, now that he actually has money for that instead of scrounging for change on the street just to try and make his half of the rent; the asthma is relatively under control thanks to a regimen involving various inhalers. The doctors can’t do anything about his partial deafness except recommend a hearing aid, which Steve tries and immediately hates, and he has to wear glasses when he reads now. He teaches himself to shave without looking in the mirror. Not that he can exactly see more than the upper two-thirds of his face in the bathroom mirror as it is, now that he’s shorter, but he still can’t stand to look at himself for longer than is necessary.

And then there’s Bucky. He had suggested moving to an apartment in Brooklyn Heights so they could live in the city without having to live in Manhattan, but still be close to high-quality medical care, including Steve’s psychiatrist and therapist. (Steve hates seeing them but cooperates because they have the same mental health team. Bucky had talked him into it with, “I’ll go if you go,” and then Steve had actually had to go. Dammit.) It’s actually a very nice apartment, absurdly expensive but paid for with Steve’s absurd salary, and with a great view of the water and the Brooklyn Bridge. It’s different from the last time they lived in Brooklyn, that’s for sure.

It doesn’t take long for the both of them to settle into a new routine, even with the mismatch in their perceptions of time. It turns out that Bucky likes to cook and is pretty good at it, and eating home-cooked, nutritious food every day combined with proper heat, electricity, water, and sewage unshockingly puts Steve at a slightly healthier baseline than before the war. He’s never going to bench-press 2,000 pounds at a time again, but neither is Steve’s chest almost concave the way it once was. He’s now more lean than gaunt, which seems to make Bucky happy.

This also means that the severity of his various and frequent illnesses are lessened, and Steve has fewer days spent in bed with nothing to do but watch TV or draw or play games on his tablet or read than he did before. But he still gets sick more often than the average person, being prone to respiratory infections in particular. He’s taken to keeping his rescue inhaler on his person at all times, because the maintenance inhaler does a fairly decent job in minimizing his overall problems with breathing properly, but it isn’t fool-proof. And unfortunately, despite the miracles of modern medicine and with Bucky’s assistance, Steve is still a terrible patient.

Bucky tries to make it not awful when Steve’s sick. He really does. And that’s part of what makes it so frustrating and humiliating – Steve should be taking care of _Bucky_ , not the other way around. He did it for Steve for years before the war, and now he’s just gotten back from the quantum realm, plunged into the aftermath of a bloody and costly fight to save the universe, and lost five entire years, only to be making chicken soup and practically feeding him aspirin like it’s 1936 again. He keeps trying to tell Bucky not to bother, it’ll run its course and he’ll be okay, but that doesn’t stop Bucky from doing what he’s always done when Steve’s ill, although he’s not overbearing by any means.

There’s also the matter of exercise. No more early-morning runs, no sparring with Natasha and Clint and Sam, and no boxing either. Bucky had flat-out refused when Steve asked, telling him that it’d been one thing in 1942 when Steve wanted to join the army and he’d agreed to help train him then, but it wouldn’t be fair now with Bucky’s enhanced abilities and prosthetic arm. It _sucks_. He misses doing all that. Keeping active meant less time spent in painful memories. Steve and Bucky go for walks all the time, but it’s not the same. Although he does have to say that the sex is just as fantastic as it always was, and it goes a long way toward helping them to reconnect more. They always seem to find new and interesting ways to get each other off, and luckily, Steve’s asthma isn’t set off by _that_.

But deeper down, even though it’s shameful and he tries to not let it take up more real estate than it needs to, Steve feels _cheated_. He’d been given this gift by Dr. Erskine, one of the best men to ever walk this earth and who had thought Steve worthy of that gift, and Thanos had taken it from him with just a little wave of his fingers, like he’s the fucking Queen of England. Just as one last _ha ha, fuck-you_ before Gamora and Nebula finished sawing through his thick, ugly neck. And for what? So Steve can be weak and frail and of no use to anyone at all? So he has to stand on a stepstool just to get a goddamn glass out of the cabinet? So he coughs and sneezes and sweats and keeps Bucky awake half the night?

There’s another thing, too, and Steve would count it as the absolute worst part of all this – it’s that when he’s sick, he sometimes wets the bed. It had happened to him a lot as a kid, and his mam had always been so patient even though the laundry was a lot of work for her on top of everything else, but it was only an occasional instance for him as an adult. Which had been deeply embarrassing, even though Bucky had never minded then. And _never_ in his newer (older, now) body. And now it’s started happening to him all over again. Steve hates himself just that much more every time he wakes up drenched in his own piss. Logically, he understands that it happens because he sleeps much more deeply because of the exhaustion that comes with having a poor constitution and being ill, but that doesn’t make it any better in his opinion.

The first time it happens, Steve has a panic attack. He’s glad that Bucky’s not there for once. Sam had requested his help raiding an AIM facility that had recently popped onto the Avengers’ radar, and so he’d left before Steve’s sore throat developed into full-blown strep. Steve has to forcibly recalibrate his breathing before the asthma takes over; eventually he does calm down enough to strip and remake the bed and take a shower, although it takes every ounce of energy he has to complete those tasks – which isn’t much. He sleeps later than normal and wakes up ready to panic again until he realizes that he’s just sweaty from the fever and should take the antibiotic dose he’d missed as soon as possible.

And Steve most certainly does _not_ tell Bucky. He does, however, buy a mattress protector and prays he won’t need it. That works for, oh, about three weeks.

The next time, Bucky shakes him awake – not roughly, but enough to bring Steve out of his deep sleep.

“Hey, what the hell,” Steve complains, his voice more nasal than usual because of the sinus infection he’d come down with two days ago. And then he discovers why Bucky had woken him up. “Oh, _fuck_.”

He buries his face in his bony knees and prays in vain for one of Thor’s lightning strikes to somehow reach him at this very moment. God, this is disgusting. He’s actually sitting in a _puddle_. At least the mattress won’t be ruined further with the waterproof pad under the sheets. Thank fuck for the internet. Steve hadn’t been sure he would be able to face going into Target or Ikea or whatever to get it.

“It’s okay,” Bucky says, and he sounds like it actually is okay.

It is definitely not okay with Steve. “God _dam_ mit.”

“Steve, come on. It’s not the end of the world. We already won the war, remember?”

“This isn’t funny,” Steve mumbles into his knees.

“I know, but seriously, it’s not a big deal. You’re sick, Steve. It happens.”

“Why’d I have to get _this_ back, too?”

“Because Thanos was a giant, ugly purple nutsack, and you happened to be in his way.”

Steve sighs.

Bucky scoots over a little and hugs him. “It’s unfair and it’s shitty and I know you’re embarrassed right now, but please try not to be. No judgment here, okay?”

Steve unfolds himself and hugs him back, because even after a few months of living in each other’s pockets, he still can’t get enough of touching Bucky. And the feeling of his strong arms around Steve’s smaller body is familiar in a good way. “Did I get you?”

“Yeah, a little. But it’s fine. How about you go take a shower and I’ll change the sheets? When you’re done, I can hop in and rinse off.”

Oh, Christ, he’s gonna see the mattress pad. “Bucky, you don’t have t—”

“No, but you’re not feeling great and there’s no reason I can’t, so just let me do it, okay?”

A long silence, and then, “Uuuuuugh.”

“I’m just trying to help.”

“I know.” Steve exhales slowly. Bucky’s right, and he shouldn’t be biting off his head like this. He has to admit that he would probably have needed to tell him about it sooner or later anyway. Maybe he could spin this somehow? “Thanks, Buck. I’d appreciate the help.”

“We’ll just throw everything in the washer and put it on when we get up.” Bucky tips Steve’s face up with his metal hand, cool and gentle, and kisses him. “Now go on,” he says softly, brushing Steve’s hair back from his forehead.

Steve does, because he would much rather be standing under the hot spray of the shower than in piss-drenched sheets that have long since gone cold. When he comes back from dumping his wet pajamas in the washing machine, Bucky’s already turned on the shower for him and is stripping the bed.

“When did we get this?” Bucky asks, pointing down at the waterproof mattress protector.

 _At least it’s not one of Mam’s rubber sheets._ Steve shrugs. “I dunno. Probably when we realized how much amazing sex we were gonna be having and how expensive this Sleep Number bed is.”

“I know my short-term memory isn’t that great, but I don’t recall that conversation.”

“At least we’ve got it now, though. Right?”

Bucky narrows his eyes, although he’s not angry. It’s his _I-don’t-believe-you-for-a-hot-second-Rogers_ expression. “Steve.”

“What?”

“You are still the worst liar I’ve ever met. How the _fuck_ did you survive in SHIELD for that long?”

“I’m not—”

“Please don’t bullshit me right now.”

Steve scrubs his hand over his face. “All right, fine. It happened before, while you and Sam were in Tanzania and I had strep throat.”

“Why didn’t you tell me? I mean, I get why, but I was gonna find out at some point. What was your plan, to just volunteer to do the laundry forever?”

“Kind of,” Steve admits.

Bucky laughs at that, but without any trace of mockery. “That _would_ be just like you. It’s fine, I’m glad you bought it. Now go justify the huge water bill we’re racking up.”

Neither of them mentions it the next day. Steve’s grateful for that, but not surprised; Bucky had always helped him with this before and not once brought it up. And so they pretend it never happened. Which they have to do again and again as the next few months pass, because even though Steve’s careful to wash or sanitize his hands frequently when they’ve been out in larger crowds, he still keeps getting sick.

And he’s thoroughly _tired_ of being sick, and tired of being tired because he keeps pissing the bed and has to clean up in the middle of the night, and tired of making Bucky tired by helping him clean up. Not that Bucky ever complains or acts like he’s being put out, no – he’s incredibly kind and supportive and affectionate. But Steve still hates that Bucky has to get involved at all.

He’s a grown man, goddammit.

\--

It goes like that until one blustery, chilly March night. Steve’s picked up the flu despite having made sure to get the vaccine back in October, and it’s one misery after another. He coughs himself into almost losing his voice in the first couple of days, so much that by night three, he has to convince Bucky to go sleep in the spare room because all Steve is doing is keeping them both from getting any sleep. Bucky finally acquiesces, crashing hard at eight that evening; when Steve checks on him before going to bed, he’s sprawled out diagonally on top of the covers, still fully dressed except for his shoes.

Not only does the flu take its toll on Steve when he finally does slide into sleep (codeine cough syrup is great, it really fucking is), but so does a dream. Well, not a dream – it’s a nightmare. In it, everything that can go wrong does go wrong and they lose. It’s not just fifty percent of all life in the universe that crumbles to dust again, this time never to return, it’s everyone except Steve. He’s left alone in a pile of ashes. And when the heap that used to be people can’t get any higher, the world around him begins to flood, the waters rising rapidly until he’s nearly drowning.

Steve jolts awake just before the water reaches his lungs, freezing in place when he realizes that he’s not only wet the bed again, but he’s _still_ peeing – and that is just too fucking much. He can’t even cut off the stream because it’s way too late for that and so Steve just has to let himself lie there pissing himself like a goddamn baby. He hasn’t gotten a decent night’s sleep in days, and that dream was so vivid and so visceral and so _terrifying_ that Steve’s shaking.

Unless someone decides to re-make the serum, which is probably not going to happen, Steve is stuck in this useless, worthless, _hateful_ body that betrays him at every turn. His capacity for dealing with life has been exceeded at the moment, and when the tears start he just lets them happen, curling up on his side and turning his face into the pillow.

What he’s forgotten is that Bucky has super-soldier hearing and is a light sleeper besides, because very soon he’s in their bedroom and at Steve’s bedside.

“Steve, hey, shh,” Bucky says, laying his hand on Steve’s heaving shoulder. “I’m here.”

That makes it so, _so_ much worse, the shame and resentment and fear rising inside Steve until he’s practically hyperventilating because he’s sobbing so hard. Steve barely notices Bucky lying down next to him on top of the duvet as the big spoon, but he does when Bucky hugs him as best he can from behind.

“Go away,” he manages through hitching breaths – and more than a few coughs – and tries to shake Bucky off.

It doesn’t work. Bucky just hugs him a little tighter. “Not until you’re feeling better,” he says. “C’mon and breathe with me, okay? If you don’t slow down, you’re gonna give yourself an asthma attack.”

Steve can only shake his head.

“Please, Steve? I think you’ll feel better if you do.” Bucky slides into the same voice he uses with children – one that he had used for his twin sisters, Rebecca and Rachel, who had come along to the Barnes family as a surprise when Bucky and Steve were ten.

Steve feels like he should resent that, but it’s oddly soothing regardless, and a memory floats to the surface of them as teenagers, pulling his sisters in a little red wagon all over Brooklyn, gleefully spending their saved-up pocket money on penny candy for the girls. Bucky had absolutely doted on his sisters, the first in line to bandage scrapes or soothe hurt feelings. So had Steve, because he’d never had any siblings and they were funny, bright, and bubbly. And he was more or less family anyway by the time they arrived; certainly Mr. and Mrs. Barnes had treated him that way. Rebecca and Rachel had loved Steve back; he’d taught them the right way to make paper airplanes and how to repair clothes with needle and thread (Mam had made that a priority because their clothes had to last and taught him early on) and how to draw a scene using perspective and shadow.

“Steve?” Bucky’s voice cuts into the memory, still calm and gentle.

Steve manages to nod.

“Okay, we’re both going to take a deep breath in 1, 2, 3…”

He doesn’t know how long they do that for, but by the end of it, Steve’s heart rate is back to normal and he isn’t shaking so hard anymore. He’s still crying just a little, but that’s because despite Bucky’s warmth next to him, he’s getting cold and it feels disgusting and _he’s_ disgusting. And he’s still fucking coughing.

“Better?” Bucky asks softly, running his fingers through Steve’s hair.

Steve’s glad he hasn’t rolled over yet, because he doesn’t think he can have this conversation facing Bucky. “No.”

“No? Well, you sound better, at least. Do you want to talk about it?”

“I…” Steve swipes at his eyes with the corner of the duvet. “I had a bad dream and when I woke up it was happening again,” he finishes, sounding pathetic even to himself.

“Oh, Steve. I’m so sorry,” Bucky says. “I know how much you hate this.”

“It’s not fair. Why does _everything_ have to be broken all the time?” he sniffles.

“I don’t know.” Bucky lightly scratches along the nape of Steve’s neck. “I do know that you are very sick and that we’ve gotta get you cleaned up before you come down with pneumonia too.”

“I can do it,” he says even as he starts coughing again.

“You could barely keep yourself upright today. Yesterday. Whenever it was. Please let me help you, Steve. I can be quick and we can both go back to sleep soon.”

Bucky’s still using his voice for kids, but instead of feeling insulted, Steve just feels worn down by it, and he’s _so tired_ and his chest hurts from so much coughing and he just doesn’t have it in him to stand in the shower by himself right now. Shame surges through him yet again when Steve says, “Okay.”

“Just relax, I’ll take care of you.”

He gets up to pull back the covers. Steve shivers at the sudden rush of cool air against his wet pajama pants and sheets, then squeaks in alarm as Bucky picks him up like he weighs nothing. Which, well, he probably _doesn’t_ weigh much of anything despite having gained some much-needed weight over the past few months.

“Bucky, no,” he whines.

“Hush, it’ll just take a couple of minutes.”

“I’m gonna get you all wet.”

“So what?”

“It’s disgusting, and I’m disg—”

“You are _not_ ,” Bucky tells him firmly, holding him a little tighter. “It was just an accident. And I’ve had way worse on my clothes before. At least _this_ washes out.”

“I’m sorry,” is all Steve can tell him.

“You don’t need to be sorry. It’s okay.”

“Not to me,” Steve says, swiping at his eyes with the backs of his hands.

“Hey, you’re gonna get yourself all worked up again if you keep talking like this. Try to think about other things so we can get done faster and go back to bed.” Bucky kisses his cheek and sets Steve down on the closed toilet lid. Then he grabs a clean washcloth from the small linen closet inside the bathroom and nabs the body wash from the shower, but he starts running the sink.

Steve frowns. “A sponge bath?”

“Yeah, I mean, I don’t think you should wait for the tub to fill, and I don’t know that you’re up for a shower.”

“Just like old times,” he mutters, because it is, and not in the good way. Their old apartment had only had a full bathroom at the end of the hall, but there was a sink in the kitchenette that Bucky used to help Steve clean up in the middle of the night, just like he’s doing now.

“Kind of. But, hey, this time there’s no draft to worry about,” Bucky answers. His touch is soft, which would surprise anyone who looked at him, but that’s just how Bucky’s always been.

Steve closes his eyes to try and dissipate the intense embarrassment of being cleaned up like a preschooler in the middle of toilet training, but if he’s honest with himself, it feels nice. Almost relaxing to be taken care of like this and not have to worry about getting it done himself, even though he shouldn’t be enjoying it at all. Then Bucky shucks off his own clothes and gives himself a quick clean-up as well.

“I’ll be right back with some pajamas,” he tells Steve. “Stay put, all right?”

And there he is, using that voice again. Steve’s so exhausted that all he can do is nod. Bucky quietly starts getting Steve dressed again after he returns, not asking permission but just doing it. Steve would tell him that he can do it himself and to fuck right off to Shelbyville, but he doesn’t even _want_ to. It’s so much easier to just lift his limbs as Bucky instructs him to. Bucky makes a point of carrying Steve into the spare bedroom when they’re both dressed despite Steve’s renewed protests.

“I’ll strip the bed and we can go back to sleep.”

“But what if…” Steve looks down, his teeth cutting into his bottom lip.

“It won’t happen again tonight, Steve. It’ll be okay.”

“You keep saying that it’ll be okay and it’s never true.”

“Hush. You’ve survived much worse than this.” Bucky drops a kiss on top of Steve’s head and disappears for a few minutes.

“Everything’s in the wash,” he says when he returns, handing Steve a medicine cup full of more of that amazing cough syrup. As Steve downs it, Bucky peels back the covers and sits up against the headboard.

Steve maneuvers himself under the blanket next to Bucky until they’re snuggled up together and somehow winds up more or less in his lap. That’s not something they ever did before – Bucky would never have patronized him like that – but Steve likes it. Bucky’s embrace is warm and strong and safe, just like him.

“I wish I knew what to do.”

“We’ll figure something out.”

“How?” Steve wants to know.

Bucky rests his chin on Steve’s shoulder. “I dunno. But I’m sure there are options. We can do some research in the morning.”

“You think there’s medicine for it?” Steve would take a dozen horse pills a day if it meant he never had to wake up drenched in pee again.

“I’m not sure. Maybe.”

He sighs, then coughs again. “I’m just so tired of this.” God, he sounds so whiny.

“I know, love.” Bucky squeezes him a little. “I’m sorry this is so hard on you.”

“And on you too.”

“Not really, no. Besides, it’s not like you’ve never been woken up by one of _my_ nightmares,” Bucky points out.

Bucky’s nightmares aren’t as frequent as Steve’s nighttime accidents, but they are no less disruptive; they’re actually his own memories, which makes them so much worse. Bucky always wakes up screaming, and Steve has to be careful to not touch Bucky until he’s fully awake. (Steve gets it; it had taken a while for those dreams to stop happening when he’d come out of the ice.) So, he’s sort of right, but at least nightmares aren’t shameful; _everyone_ has them. But not everyone wets the bed when having one.

“It’s not the same,” he mumbles.

“Why not?”

“No age limit on bad dreams.”

“There’s no age limit on this either, Steve. It happens to a lot of people.”

“No, it doesn’t.”

“Yes, it does.”

Steve is ready to cry with frustration now and coughs a few times to cover it. He knows Bucky is right, but he’s not “people.” He’s Steve Rogers, and he is not supposed to have this problem, even if he isn’t Captain America anymore.

“You just don’t get it,” he finally says.

“And _you_ are a stubborn asshole.” Bucky kisses his cheek. “But I love you anyway.”

“I love you too,” Steve replies, and adds, “Jerk.”

They sit together in companionable silence until Steve’s coughs diminish in frequency and he’s slumping in Bucky’s arms, head lolling. It’s suddenly hard to keep his eyes open, and Steve yawns.

“Hey, let’s try and get some sleep, okay?” Steve nods, and Bucky lifts him off his lap.

Steve yawns again, burying himself under the covers as Bucky switches off the bedside lamp. “Bucky?”

“Hmm?”

“Thank you.”

“Anytime.”

Steve sleeps in an hour past his usual alarm, but he’s blessedly dry when he does wake up. But – not surprisingly, as it _is_ the flu – he doesn’t feel any better than yesterday, physically speaking; his head is splitting, he keeps running hot and then cold and then hot again, and he can’t stop fucking coughing. Steve downs more cough syrup than is probably wise before Bucky practically forces him to eat breakfast at gunpoint because he’s just not hungry, but he supposes he does probably need to put something in his stomach. Unfortunately, the medicine doesn’t make a dent this time.

“Ugh, _fuck_ ,” he gasps after a particularly long coughing fit spent doubled over in a kitchen chair, his voice rough. Jesus, his throat is fucking killing him. It must be in shreds by now, Steve thinks.

“Here, drink this.” Bucky hands him a glass of ice water.

Steve downs it in several long gulps and hands it back. “Thanks.”

“You want to watch TV in the living room?” he asks.

Not really, but at least it’s a change of scenery from their bedroom. “Sure.”

Once Steve’s ensconced on the sofa, Bucky drags over a side table and sets up a little station with a box of Kleenex, another glass of ice water, the universal remote control, and the last of the bag of cough drops he’s been sucking on. Steve does some channel surfing for a while, and unsatisfied by the lack of good programming at 10 AM on a Tuesday, he gives up and starts looking through the streaming services. Meanwhile, Bucky is in a flurry of activity, going from the laundry room to the bedroom (presumably to put the clean sheets and mattress pad back on their bed) and then rummaging in the hallway closet for cleaning supplies.

Bucky pops into the living room with a pair of vinyl gloves already on. “The bathrooms could use a deep-clean. Yell if you need anything, okay?”

“Sure, Buck.”

Eventually, Steve settles on _Parks and Recreation_. He’s already seen the whole series, but it’s funny and optimistic and, most importantly, not mentally taxing. He should have just gone with that from the start instead of wasting twenty minutes trying to find something to watch. The drops and ice water keep his coughing at bay until he runs out. Steve sucks on the last one resentfully, wishing he’d thought to buy more at Duane Reade last week, and wonders if he can order same-day delivery from somewhere when an intense coughing spell hits him.

He’s coughing so hard that he’s frozen to the spot, and it feels like the fit just goes on for goddamn _ever_. Just when Steve thinks it’s over, he starts back up again before he can move, hacking so hard that he thinks he might fall off the sofa. But that’s not what happens.

What happens is _so much worse_. And it’s not something he can stop because Steve’s already working so hard to catch his breath, and it’s starting before he even registers that it’s going to happen – he’s coughing so hard that the force of it is causing Steve to piss himself.

“No, no, _no_ ,” Steve moans, grabbing his dick through his sweatpants, but it’s too late, and all he can do is watch as the wet patch on his lap spreads.

Even worse, Bucky appears shortly after it begins, but without the gloves this time. “Hey, it’s all right,” he murmurs even though Steve’s still peeing his pants like a baby.

Steve buries his face in his hands, not crying but feeling very much that he would like to, and he can’t stop shivering even though he isn’t cold. “No, it isn’t,” he manages.

“It’s just an accident, Stevie.”

Bucky is being so kind right now that Steve can’t stand it. “Shut the _fuck_ up.”

“Hey, come on. No need for that.”

Bucky’s right, but Steve doesn’t care. “Just go away, Buck.”

“All right.” Bucky stands up again. “I’m gonna get you some more cough drops.”

“I don’t give a fuck what you do.”

Bucky says nothing, but Steve hears the front door shut a moment later.

At least the sofa is leather, and Steve’s accident is pretty much confined to his sweatpants and socks, so he heaves himself up and stands under the hottest shower he can stand for way too long. Once Steve’s dressed again, he grabs some cleaning spray and a rag to disinfect the sofa. By the time Bucky returns with several plastic shopping bags, Steve’s resentfully watching Leslie Knope run for city council.

“Steve?” Bucky asks, sounding hesitant.

“What.”

“Here.” Bucky drops the bags onto the sofa next to him.

Steve finds the cough drops and the Gatorade right away, but the third bag hits him like a slug making contact with a bulletproof vest, sharp and bruising; it contains a rather large plastic-wrapped package of adult-sized pull-up diapers.

“Bucky, what the _fuck_.”

“It’s not an indictment on you or anything. It was just an idea.” Bucky runs his hand through his hair, which has grown longer than ever.

“This is fucking _bullshit_. What were you thinking?” he snaps.

“I was thinking that it would maybe be easier on you!” Bucky retorts. “You’re fucking miserable and as usual, you won’t admit it to yourself, let alone anyone else, so I thought I’d try and make you a little more comfortable.”

Steve’s vision is starting to go red around the edges. “So you took this upon yourself without even asking me, huh?”

“Oh, yeah, god fucking forbid I do anything that would actually be of help. You can do it all yourself, right?” Bucky rolls his eyes.

“I don’t need these.” Steve shoves the bag of pull-ups onto the floor, then kicks it for good measure.

“Sure. You keep telling yourself that, pal.”

“Fuck you.”

Bucky’s eyes narrow, and for the first time since he returned from the quantum realm, he looks angry. “Oh, fuck _you_. Go ahead and wallow in your misery if you want, but I’m not lifting a goddamn finger until you ask me. I’m done. All I try to do is help you and you act like I’m murdering your grandma. Have you ever considered how _I_ might feel?”

Steve kicks the bag again. “Whatever. I don’t care. Do what you want.”

He does care, of course, and very much. But Steve’s not about to say so.

“Fine.” Bucky grabs his cell phone from its charger on the foyer table and shoves it into his back pocket. “I’m going for a walk. I hope you’ll be in a better mood by the time I come home, because I love you, but I am _not_ gonna put up with this.”

The door slams behind Bucky, and Steve feels like shit all over again. He can’t understand why he’s like this, why he’s being so ungrateful and petulant and mean. It’s a totally alien feeling, and one that doesn’t bring him any satisfaction. But he doesn’t know what to do about it right now, so he goes back to watching _Parks and Rec_. Steve is _so angry_ when he coughs hard enough to leak into his boxer shorts – not the new pair of pants he’d put on, thank God – that he lets loose a stream of profanities that could burn St. Patrick’s Cathedral to the ground.

The pull-ups are still there on the living room carpet, taunting him with their presence. “Discreet!” “Absorbent!” the package burbles.

Yeah, well, they’re still fucking bullshit as far as Steve is concerned, even as he’s ripping the pack open to get a better look and see what they’re all about. But once he’s holding one, it doesn’t seem so ridiculous; it feels soft, and it’s thinner than Steve had expected — not like the bulky, obvious diaper he’d been imagining. And the next thing he knows, he’s kicked off his track pants and is pushing down his shorts so that he can put on the pull-up he’s holding.

It feels _weird_ once it’s on. Not bad, but weird, and a very tangible reminder of Steve’s failure to have a handle on the most basic of bodily functions. He absolutely hates it, but he still pulls his pants back up and tosses his boxers into the shared laundry basket. But by the time Steve sits down again, he can barely notice the pull-up. It feels almost like regular briefs. He knows it’s not, but that’s how he’s going to behave.

Steve doesn’t tell Bucky that it helps, even though he wears one the whole time until the flu’s run its course, although he does apologize for acting like an asshole when Bucky comes home. He manages to mostly make it to the bathroom over the duration of his illness, but when he starts coughing and it catches him unawares or when he’s ready to pass out from sheer exhaustion, Steve’s actually sort of glad he’s got protection. It saves him several cases of wet pants, and definitely one night of sheets, if not more. It’s not very fun to wake up wet and cold, but better that it’s in an adult diaper than the whole bed, Steve guesses. And better to not wake Bucky, who needs his sleep too. But he’s glad to put it – and the half-used pack, hidden under some basketball shorts in a dresser drawer – out of his mind until the next time he gets sick a couple of weeks later.

He slips on a pull-up when Bucky goes out to buy him some more cold and sinus Tylenol and some popsicles to ease his sore throat (seasonal allergies turning into a sinus infection for what must be the millionth time) and is horrified to find that it feels not just useful and practical, but _good._

It’s like putting on armor to protect himself from his own body, and the instant security this provides is overwhelming. There’s no telling Bucky about this, even though he’s the most nonjudgmental person Steve’s ever known. But regardless, he shouldn’t be glad that there’s an easy solution to his problems; he _should_ feel ashamed at being a grown man who can’t keep his pants dry. It’s ridiculous and demeaning.

Only, there’s nothing where that shame ought to be.

\--

One morning Steve finds himself reaching into the pack (his third one, if he counts the pack Bucky had bought) even though he isn’t sick. It’s just – Steve now associates the feeling of wearing a pull-up as something safe and secure that can’t be taken away from him like so much else has been. And he hates himself immediately because he has no way of explaining any of this to Bucky, so he has to keep this secret. Steve _hates_ keeping secrets, especially from Bucky. But more and more, he finds himself relying on it to feel more at ease with his new circumstances, finds himself using his pull-ups even when he doesn’t need to. It’s shameful and disgusting to let go in his pants like a baby and also to _want_ to, like, _who even does this_ , but it’s also comforting.

Steve wonders, not for the first time, what the actual fuck is wrong with him.

One morning when Bucky’s gone off to the shooting range, Steve, fed up with himself, puts his tablet into incognito mode and starts looking for answers. Maybe Google can tell him why he’s such a goddamn freak and what to do about it. And hopefully it’ll give him ways to stomp this out as soon as possible. He types in “adults who like to wear diapers” and blushes a deep crimson at the results that come up – but Steve doesn’t _not_ click on them, either.

He wishes he could describe the relief he feels at the volume of search results, because it means that Steve isn’t alone in this desperate wanting. There are several message boards that have multi-page threads full of people talking about how safe and protected they feel in diapers, how they’re a way to unwind and give up control for a little while, how some people are even taken care of by their partners just like Bucky tries to take care of Steve (when Steve lets him). And then he feels shitty all over again, knowing Bucky’s just trying to be kind and make Steve’s life less stressful, while Steve keeps rejecting his kindnesses. He resolves to be nicer and accept help when it’s offered, although he knows that’s going to be difficult at first.

It’s actually pretty fascinating to read about all the different ways in which people involve themselves in this world – for some it’s sexual, for others it’s not. Steve can’t truthfully say that he’s _never_ gotten hard when wearing a pull-up, but it’s not the first thing he thinks of when he’s putting one on, so he figures that it’s not a kink for him. (It’s _definitely_ a kink for some. Which is fine, Steve can understand how that could happen.) And then there are the people who engage in age play, where they regress to childhood; for some, the play involves diapers.

Now _that_ makes sense to Steve. He’s already small enough as it is by pretty much anyone’s standards and he hates to be reminded of that, but wearing pull-ups in an adult mindset is clearly fucking with him. Maybe if he pretended to be younger, that would be okay. It does sound pretty appealing the more he thinks about it. And far more acceptable to his own point of view than the current state of things.

Maybe he even could try it today before Bucky gets back. When he goes out to the range – usually with Natasha and Clint – he tends to not return for most of the day, but he always brings home dinner. Steve doesn’t mind when Bucky goes off and does things without him; he deserves a life beyond Steve. And it’s still early in the day, so Steve’s got _plenty_ of time.

It’s just that he doesn’t really know where to start, so that involves another round of Googling to figure out what to do. Steve remembers having been an actual child quite vividly, but he and his mam had been too poor for what fun there was to be had. She saved up pennies here and there all year long for a birthday trip to the Bronx Zoo and made sure that he had as much paper and pencils as she could manage to scrounge up for him. Mam had encouraged his art, having taken a few classes herself before she became a nurse. But other than that, Steve hadn’t really had much by way of toys, and there was almost never money to see a movie or go to Coney Island or anything like that. They’d only owned a radio because their landlord, Mr. Sullivan, upgraded his to the newest and fanciest model and wanted to offer his old one to someone who could use it.

If Steve got to do anything else aside from Mam’s best efforts, it was because of Bucky and his family, who were well-off and stayed that way even during the Depression thanks to Mr. Barnes’s careful saving. They made sure to include Steve in as much as they possibly could. And they included his mam, too, as she worked so many long hours as a TB nurse just to keep a roof over their heads; Mrs. Barnes never failed to always Steve home with enough food for them both, and they were always invited over for the holidays – even though the Rogers family was Catholic and the Barnes family was Jewish. It actually worked out quite well, because Mam wound up working most Christmases and Easters anyway (and even Thanksgiving, most of the time). Bucky’s parents viewpoint was that being together was the most important thing. So perhaps it wouldn’t be so bad after all to have the opportunity to explore what childhood could be now that Steve has plenty of money and time on his hands.

Steve smiles for the first time all morning as he realizes that this might actually be _fun_ , and he sets the tablet onto the coffee table after taking care to exit the internet browser so that Bucky won’t find anything if he happens to pick up Steve’s tablet, which he does sometimes when he’s too lazy to go find his own. But what to do? There’s a pack of cards somewhere around the house, he knows, but playing solitaire doesn’t exactly scream “kid’s game,” and he can’t play Go Fish by himself. And obviously they don’t have any toys. He and Bucky do like playing video games on the Super Nintendo console they’d scored on eBay, but that doesn’t appeal to him right now.

But there _is_ the television right in front of him, and they _do_ have every streaming service known to God and man. And Steve doesn’t have to jump in with both feet, right? He can do some exploring and see how he feels before he brings it up to Bucky – because he _is_ going to have to. Not today and not tomorrow, but once Steve figures out what he likes and what he wants to do and how to ask Bucky if he’s willing to participate. If Bucky doesn’t, that’s fine; he’ll live.

Steve’s sure that neither his psychiatrist or his therapist would approve of it, but they _do_ keep telling him to find better coping mechanisms, so fuck it. If this helps him even just a little, Steve’s going to do it. He’s so goddamn tired of being miserable and short-tempered so often.

The only problem is that he’s not sure how old he wants to pretend to be. Should he start at age ten or so, and then work his way down to see where his comfort level lands? Or should he start from a younger age, given that he’s already in a pull-up? Steve debates with himself for way too long before deciding that he’s just wasting time and overthinking it; in a compromise with his own consciousness, he puts on _Carmen Sandiego_ , which falls in the middle range of what he’s considering. It’s animated in a cool style and turns out to be pretty fun, and before long Steve’s totally immersed in the show.

After a few episodes, Steve realizes he needs to pee and starts to get up before remembering he’s protected, and so when the time comes that his need becomes _now_ , he simply lets go. It’s a totally different sensation to go in his pants and know he’s doing it on purpose, and he squirms a little with discomfort at doing something so gross just because he wanted to. But there’s no denying that it does feel good to stop holding it. It feels _really_ good. Steve slips his hand into his track pants and rests it on the pull-up, giving it an experimental squeeze and is surprised that it didn’t leak, given how much he’s just peed.

 _Hm, maybe I should clean up_. And then a moment later, _eh, it can wait_.

Even so, Steve gets up when the episode he’s been watching ends, because he’s pretty sure it’s not great to sit in a wet pull-up for too long and he really doesn’t want to arouse Bucky’s curiosity by getting a rash. He does, however, put on a new pull-up instead of boxers. He’ll just have to make sure he changes back before Bucky gets home.

He almost can’t believe that he pulls it off, even though Bucky gets back late in the day as Steve had known he would, carrying bags of takeout from their favorite Indian place and setting them down on the dining room table. Steve is in his regular boxer shorts again, having showered just to make sure Bucky’s sensitive nose doesn’t pick up on anything amiss (having received the serum, all his senses are heightened). The scent of the food fills the air, and Steve’s stomach rumbles. It’s been a long time since lunch.

Bucky leans down to meet Steve’s level from where he’s been sprawled on the sofa with a sketchpad and a set of Prismacolor pencils, drawing the view of the Brooklyn Bridge from their living room window, and greets him with a long kiss.

Steve kisses him back eagerly, even though Bucky is all sweaty and gross; he must have gotten in some gym time with Nat after they got bored of shooting at paper targets. “Hey, Buck.”

“Hey, yourself.” Bucky cards his fingers through Steve’s hair. “What trouble did you get into while I was gone?”

“Why, Bucky, what makes you think I would get into trouble?” Steve makes his eyes wide with faux-innocence.

“’Cause it’s already your middle name, ain’t it?” Bucky grins.

“Actually, I had it legally changed to Wilbur in 2018.”

They both laugh, and Bucky kisses him again, Steve wrapping his arms around Bucky as tight as they’ll go.

“I need a shower like you wouldn’t believe. Natasha really put me through my paces at the rock climbing wall today.”

“Oh, is that why you smell like a nervous horse?”

“I do not smell like a nervous horse!”

“Yeah, sure, keep telling yourself that.” Steve doesn’t bother to hide his smirk.

“You’re the worst, Steve, you know that?”

“Yup.”

 Bucky deliberately tousles Steve’s hair to mess it up. “I’m gonna shower. You want to eat after I’m done?”

“Sure,” he answers, reaching up to try and put his hair back in place, knowing he’s really only making it worse. “Kitchen, dining room, or living room?”

“Dining room, so we can listen to the news?”

“Okay. Don’t take too long.”

“I’ll skip the jerking-off part, then.”

“I’m sure I can make it up to you.”

“God, I hope so. That’s the only reason I came home.”

Steve smacks him with one of the throw pillows on the sofa. “Go already, before I eat all the garlic naan.”

“You wouldn’t _dare_.”

“Watch me.”

\--

Steve doesn’t get so lucky the next time Bucky goes shooting with Nat and Clint a couple of weeks later.

 When he walks in the front door, it’s definitely a surprise for the both of them. Steve’s curled up on the sofa watching an episode of _Sesame Street_ from the 70s that he’d found on YouTube and is wearing a pull-up under his clothes; his thumb has even found its way into his mouth. (He’d sucked his thumb until he was almost six and has been rediscovering the joys of it during Bucky’s solo excursions lately, even if he’s just making a quick run to the bodega for paper towels.) He’s wrapped up in a blanket, but it’s extremely obvious that something out of the ordinary is going on.

 _At least I’m still dry_ , he thinks as he yanks his thumb out and wipes it on his t-shirt. “Hi?”

“Hi. Water main on Fort Hamilton Parkway broke so the range closed down early. Didn’t you get my text?”

He can see his phone blinking violet, the color Steve had chosen specifically for Bucky’s texts, from where he’d tossed it onto a side table. He’d just been too engrossed in the show to notice the notification. Oh, _fuck_. “Oh. Yeah. I guess I did.”

“Hey, uh.” Bucky’s eyes flicker from Steve to the TV and then back to Steve again. “Is there something you want to tell me, Steve?”

 _Other than wishing I could spontaneously combust and avoid this conversation?_ Steve’s been planning to talk to Bucky for about a week now, but he certainly hasn’t wanted to do it because he’s gotten caught. “Um. Yeah.”

“Can I sit?” Bucky asks. He mostly just looks curious.

“Sure.” Steve turns the TV off, not wanting it to distract either of them.

Bucky eases himself down and kicks off his sneakers, nudging them under the coffee table with his feet until they’re out of tripping-over proximity. Once he’s settled, he turns to face Steve, who’s now shrunken into the corner of the sofa. “Are you feeling okay?”

“Yeah, I feel fine.”

“Good, you need a break from doctors’ visits. So what’s going on, Steve?”

Steve drops his gaze, fiddling with the edge of the crocheted blanket he’s got wrapped around his shoulders for a moment before he can speak, looking back up at him. “Um. You remember when I had the flu?”

“Vividly. How could I forget not sleeping for a week?”

“You got me those, um, adult briefs.” Steve can feel himself turning scarlet with embarrassment. “I’ve…I’ve been using them ever since.”

“When you’ve been sick, you mean?” Bucky’s expression is still neutral.

“Yeah.”

“Have they been helping?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, good. I’ve kind of been wondering about that because you haven’t had any more…” Bucky waves his hand.

“Accidents,” Steve finishes his sentence for him rather flatly. “I wish it’d been because my body finally caught up with the program, but that hasn’t been the case.”

“I’m sorry, Steve.”

“It’s fine. I mean, it’s not _fine_ , but you know.”

“I do.”

Better to rip the band-aid off now and get it out in the open, he supposes. “I’ve had to buy some more. This is actually the third pack. And I kind of realized a little while ago that they really aren’t so bad. Like…I don’t get so stressed out wondering, what if I take Nyquil and pass out so hard I don’t wake up in time? I don’t have to choose between feeling better and pissing the bed.”

Bucky doesn’t look so much as fazed. “Okay. So what’s that got to do with today, if you’re not sick?”

Steve’s airway threatens to constrict at the thought of confessing, but he manages to keep it functioning with a few deep breaths and forcibly reminding himself that Bucky probably isn’t gonna throw him out for this. “I, um. Shit. This is really hard, Buck.”

“It’s okay, Steve. Really, I promise.” Bucky reaches over and puts his hand on top of Steve’s, almost covering it entirely.

“I actually _like_ the way that they feel. When I’m wearing them. And I sorta freaked out and started trying to find ways to make myself stop liking it, and then I found all these websites full of people who also like it, and there were _so many posts_ , Buck, in the thousands even.” He’s talking too fast now, the way he does when he’s on the verge of panicking.

“Hey, hey, slow down.” Bucky squeezes his hand.

He tries. “So, I didn’t feel so weird and gross when I read that stuff. I mean, I know it _is_ weird and gross to like it, but I do. But it’s not uh, a sex thing. It just feels…” Steve swallows hard. “Safe.”

Bucky’s quiet for a full minute, and just before Steve can panic, he speaks. “Were you ever gonna tell me?”

“Yes.”

“When?”

“Soon. As – as soon as I figured out some other stuff.”

“Such as?”

Steve can’t bring himself to keep looking Bucky in the eye right now, so he focuses his attention on one of the blanket’s tasseled ends, wrapping yarn around his index finger until it turns almost purple and unwinding it again. He takes a deep breath and exhales it slowly.

“See, when I was trying to figure out how to get myself to stop wanting it, I saw this thing called age play, where people pretend to be younger than they really are. And I thought it sounded…sounded kind of nice. Like, maybe if I pretended to be younger it wouldn’t be so bad if I had an accident or if I let you help me with stuff, because then it isn’t my body that’s the problem, it’s just part of being a kid.”

“And that’s what you were doing just now?”

“Yeah.” His voice cracks on the syllable, but Steve absolutely refuses to cry. Not now. Not in front of Bucky. Not _again_. “I’ve been trying to figure out some stuff before I told you about it. Like what I want to do and how old I want to be.”

“How old _do_ you want to be?” Bucky asks him.

“Um.” Steve knows exactly how old he wants to be, but he doesn’t want to just blurt it out yet. “I’m sorry, Bucky, I know this is wrong.”

“It’s not wrong if it helps you feel better. And it’s not hurting anyone,” he assures Steve, sounding as if he actually means that. “I know this is a difficult conversation to be having, but at least we’re having it, right?”

“Yeah.”

“So how do I factor into this?” Bucky pauses. “ _Do_ I factor into this?”

“That’s one of the things I wanted to ask you about when we talked. If you would want to. Uh. Help me with it.”

Bucky flicks his hair out of his eyes. “Jesus, I’ve got to get this cut, it’s driving me fucking crazy,” he mutters.

“Bucky?” Steve asks tentatively, because it’s not a good sign that Bucky didn’t answer him.

“Sorry, got distracted. I mean, I guess I’m not really that shocked by this.” Bucky says.

That’s news to Steve. “What?”

He shrugs. “I thought you’d be angrier and more defensive when you had the flu and peed the bed, but you cried your eyes out and let me take care of you without complaining too much. And you didn’t make a peep when I had you in my lap. I was sure that you’d hate it and try to punch me for babying you too much. And then you threw a totally outsized fit the next day.”

“So you already suspected?”

“No. But I can sort of see how you got here.”

“Oh, uh. Okay.”

“So,” Bucky says after a minute, “have you decided on anything for when you want to do this age play stuff?”

“Some.”

“Like how old you want to be? You never answered my question.”

Steve sighs, scrubbing his hand over his face. “Three.”

“That’s pretty young, Steve.”

“I know.”

“Have you tried it out?”

“Not per se. I was sort of getting into it when you came home. It – I dunno, Buck, it feels right. I don’t want to be a baby, but I don’t really want to have to make too many decisions either. I’ve had enough of that for a lifetime.”

“Okay.”

“And you?” Steve can’t keep the anxiety out of his voice. “Would you? Help? Or want to?”

“I don’t know yet, Steve.”

His stomach twists. “Oh.”

“Could I think about it? Do some research of my own and see what I come up with?”

Steve’s stomach untwists a bit. It’s not a definite no, at least. “Sure, Bucky.”

“Just let me have the rest of the day and I’ll tell you before bed.”

“Why not in the morning?”

Bucky shrugs. “Why keep you awake all night worrying about it?”

“I wouldn’t worry about it all night.”

“Just most of it.” He cracks a smile at Steve, but it fades as he keeps talking. “Listen, Steve. I’m not mad at you. I believe you when you say you were gonna tell me. And I’m glad you did. Really.”

“Thanks.”

“Why don’t we have some lunch and I’ll start reading up?” Bucky asks.

There’s nothing else Steve can say but, “Okay.”

Steve’s stomach is in knots as he brushes his teeth before bed, sure that Bucky will tell him that it’s fine if he wants to do this but Bucky won’t be participating because it’s just too weird for him. This day has taken forever, and as the time to turn in draws closer, Steve becomes increasingly nervous. He shivers even after he gets under the blankets and plays a game of Yahtzee on his phone to try and distract himself until Bucky joins him. It partly works; at least he doesn’t feel like throwing up anymore.

He can hear the sink shutting off in their bathroom and Bucky appears a moment later, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “We’re gonna need to get more toothpaste soon.”

Steve nods.

The mattress dips as Bucky lies down, and he props himself up on one elbow to face Steve. “So.”

“So?”

“I’ve done all the reading I’m gonna do on age play for now,” he says. “I think we’ll have to figure out some of it as we go, don’t you?”

Steve’s not sure he’s heard Bucky correctly. “Wait, what?”

Bucky gives Steve’s shoulder a light push, grinning at him. “I’m saying I’m in, Steve.”

“ _Really_?” Good thing he’s already lying down.

“Yes, really. It sounds fun.”

Steve’s eyebrows practically migrate to the top of his head. “Seriously?”

“Seriously. Did you swap brains with a parrot while I was gone or something?”

“No, I’m just surprised, is all.”

“Yeah, me too, but you know, I think it’ll be good for us both. Like you said earlier, it feels right.” Bucky’s still smiling. “Taking care of you is just about the only thing that really makes sense to me right now, given the circumstances. I know how much worse this was and is for you, but it’s pretty disorienting for me at times, to be honest. So if you’re asking for me to take care of you, and if this is the way you want to be taken care of, then I’m completely on board.”

“ _Thank_ you,” Steve breathes, still a bit poleaxed and half expecting little cartoon birds to appear and fly around his head.

“Don’t thank me. It really does seem like fun. Besides, I’ve already got a dozen ideas on how to spoil you rotten.” Bucky reaches over and tweaks Steve’s nose. “But we’ve gotta talk about this so we’re both on the same page.”

“Right now?”

“Why not? Tell me some things you really want to happen and some things you don’t want to happen at all.”

“I don’t want to be spanked,” he says immediately.

“And I don’t want to spank you.” Bucky makes a face at the thought. “Can we do time-outs or something, if you wind up needing a punishment?”

“Or a chance to cool off,” Steve points out. “Time-outs would be okay.”

“All right. What else?”

“I’d rather have a choice between two things than all the choices.”

“Makes sense. It always worked on the girls, didn’t it?”

“It really did.” Steve smiles, remembering several times when that tactic had avoided certain disaster.

“What about clothing and stuff? I thought maybe I could get you some cartoon character pajamas or t-shirts.”

“I like that idea, Buck.” Steve actually _hadn’t_ thought about that, so he’s glad Bucky did.

“I should probably also buy you more pull-ups. Do you want the kind you have now, or something that has a print?”

This conversation is somehow both incredibly surreal and yet also like he’s been let loose in an art supply store with a million dollars. “Can I have the printed kind?”

“You can have anything you want.” Bucky pauses. “Hey, don’t get mad at me for asking this. I know you’re not planning to be a baby, but what about diapers? I saw some cute ones online that you would probably like. And they’re less likely to leak overnight.”

“Yeah, um…Yeah.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing, it’s just odd,” Steve says, feeling his face grow hot. “To be talking about this. With you. About my weird deviant _thing_.”

"Steve, it’s not a weird deviant thing. It’s an unusual thing, sure, but it makes you feel better about everything that’s happened to you for a little while, right?”

“Right.”

“And it’s not hurting anyone, is it?”

“No.”

“So quit it with the ‘oh I’m so gross’ routine. It’s not like I’ve never changed a diaper before. And the disposables are gonna make it so much easier,” Bucky says. “Unless you want some cloth ones?”

Steve shudders, remembering how fast they got cold when Mam would put him in one for overnight and he’d wake up wet. “Fuck, no.”

“Anything else?”

“Don’t use them as a punishment.”

“Why on earth would I do that? This is supposed to be fun, right?”

“Yeah. I didn’t think you would, but since we’re talking about it and all.”

“I definitely won’t. But I’m definitely gonna go nuts, so don’t worry if we get a lot of packages at once.”

“You’d better make sure they’re not shipped in the factory boxes, Buck. We do have neighbors.”

“What, you think I’m an amateur?” Bucky grins. “How about a special blanket or something?”

Steve shakes his head. “Nah. I’d rather you take me to pick out a stuffed animal or five.”

“You got it. Sippy cups and/or pacifiers?” Bucky actually says “and/or” like the huge dork he is.

It makes Steve grin back. “Sure, why not?”

“Wow, something might actually get you to shut up for once,” he teases. “And you _did_ look pretty cute when I got home today.”

“I am not cute.” He punches Bucky in the bicep. It has no real effect, of course. “Can I have some books? They don’t have to be for three-year-olds, but I’d like it if we could read together.”

“Definitely. I have some ideas for that already. What about toys? You want to pick some out for yourself or do you want me to surprise you?”

“Let me pick some out and then you can surprise me later. Knowing you, soon we won’t be able to walk around without stepping on army men,” he says with a laugh.

“Like I said, I plan on spoiling you rotten. I’m trying to think about other things I can get for you…bath stuff? I didn’t really look that up, sorry.”

“I dunno either. Let’s table that for now?”

“Sure.” Bucky’s quiet for a moment. “I just want to be clear on what my role is so I know what to do when the time comes. So far I’m gonna do diaper changes and baths and help you get dressed, plus read and play with you. What else?”

“Um. Carry me sometimes, but just at home? And take me along when you need to run errands?”

“Oh, Steve, I plan on taking you to do so many fun things, not just errands.” Bucky smiles, reaching over to push Steve’s hair off his forehead. “That is, if you’re okay with us doing this in public.”

“We don’t have to be loud about it,” Steve says. “And nobody really notices us anymore. I’m just some short guy with his hobo boyfriend.”

Bucky cracks up. “You jerk.”

“Did I lie, though?”

“Nah. I really do need to get a haircut. I’m sick of losing hair ties anyway. How about we get used to each other at home and on shorter trips while you’re little? That way if something goes sideways, we can deal with it at home. Or at least be able to come home quickly. And then we can work our way up to longer days out.”

“Yeah, that’s probably a good idea. What about you, Bucky? Is there anything you’re not comfortable with?”

“It’s not so much comfort as personal preference, but I think you remember my stance on whining.”

Boy, does Steve ever. Bucky would pretend that he literally couldn’t understand his sisters when they whined. “I’ll try.”

“When we leave the house, I expect you to listen to me and stay close. No running off,” Bucky says. “I will seriously put you on a leash.”

It’s Steve’s turn to laugh. “I think it’ll be okay, Buck. No leashes needed, I’m not _actually_ three.”

“Well, who knows what being in your headspace will actually entail?”

“Oh, you _have_ been reading up. But yeah, point made. Anything else?”

“I dunno, just like, don’t kick me if you get mad?”

“I wouldn’t do that anyway.”

“I know.”

“Are you sure that this isn’t gonna be too one-sided for you?”

“Steve, I like kids. And I love you. It’s a no-brainer.”

“I love you too. And I’ll make the cuddles worth your while.” Steve scoots over, closer to Bucky.

“Oh, you will, huh?” Bucky flops down onto the pillows and extends the arm he’d been propping himself up with so that Steve can rest his head on Bucky’s shoulder. “Ooh, yeah, that’s the stuff.”

Steve swats lightly at Bucky’s chest. “Oh, shut up.”

“Is that any way to talk to your father?”

“Is that what you’ve decided to go with? Not big brother?”

“Too Orwellian.”

“Babysitter?”

“Too porny.”

“And me calling you ‘daddy’ _isn’t_ porny?”

Bucky laughs. “Nah. It actually sounds nice coming from you.”

“You do have sort of a farmers’ market vibe going on. Like you should be carrying an eco-friendly shopping bag and walking your rescue greyhound, in your nicest sweater vest.”

He chooses to ignore that. “We should probably try to get some sleep. Don’t you have a meeting at Avengers Tower tomorrow?”

“Yeah.” He sighs. “I just love schlepping myself into the city just to look at some reports.”

“You do more than just look at reports, Steve.”

“Doesn’t always feel like it.”

“I can come with you,” Bucky offers. “We could hit FAO Schwarz afterward and find you some toys. I mean, if you want.”

Steve grins. “I’d like that, Bucky.”

“Me too.”

Not only does Bucky take him to FAO Schwarz just as he’d promised once Steve’s meeting is over, but they also go directly to Ikea from there, and finally to Target. Steve hadn’t started out the trip feeling little, but he definitely does by the time they’re done, and he practically bounces off the backseat of their Uber on the way home in anticipation. Also, because he has to pee. He’d forgotten to go before they left Target.

“Steve, settle down, we’ll be home soon,” Bucky says softly into Steve’s ear.

But how can he settle down when there are so many great new things in the shopping bags surrounding him? Bucky had bought anything Steve asked for, as long as they could get it home in a regular-sized car. He’s got blocks for building and race cars for racing (and smashing into each other) and several new games and puzzles from FAO Schwarz, a store that Steve never even dared to enter as a real child because it was so fancy and expensive. Their venture into Ikea had yielded several of what the store calls soft toys – a floppy elephant, a friendly-looking lion, and a hilariously large and confused-looking shark – and a wooden track for train cars that hold together with magnets. And Target was mostly so Steve could pick out some play clothes, and he’d more or less stuck with superhero-themed t-shirts and pajama pants, much to Bucky’s amusement. Bucky had also taken him down the aisle with coloring books, letting him choose several and adding the biggest boxes of crayons and colored pencils they stocked, before picking up a few things they need for the house.

It had been _so_ worth sitting through that two-hour meeting for to get all this stuff. It’s more than Steve had cumulatively owned during his real childhood, and it’s all brand-new. Almost nothing he’d played with was ever brand-new, and Steve is absolutely desperate to find out what it’s like to play with toys that had been bought just for him.

“Want to play _now_ ,” he whispers back, not wanting the driver to hear, even though that’s unlikely because she’s so busy swearing at Brooklyn rush-hour traffic.

“I know.” Bucky pulls Steve into his side for a short hug. “It won’t be long.”

That doesn’t really help, though, and Steve fidgets as the car makes its way through the borough, his need to use the bathroom increasing by the minute.

“Daddy? I hafta go potty,” he whispers, and it feels strange to call Bucky that. It also has the unintentional effect of making him feel even younger.

“We’re almost home, buddy,” Daddy says, pointing at a building on the corner. “See? That’s the diner we like.”

Steve almost whines in frustration, slipping a hand into his pants pocket so he can hold himself without being too obvious. It’s a good thing that they really are almost home, because as soon as they get in the front door, Steve drops the shopping bags he’d been carrying onto the floor and makes a beeline for the hallway bathroom, not trusting himself to make it as far as the master bath. He sighs with relief at not having had an accident, but it’d been a close call. _Way_ too close.

“Everything okay, Stevie?”

Steve zips up his pants and blushes to see Daddy leaning against the doorway. He’d forgotten to close the door in his hurry to get to the potty on time. “Uh-huh. I made it.”

“Good job, kiddo. Why don’t we get you changed into some comfier clothes?” he suggests.

“And then I can play?”

“That’s the idea.”

Steve lights up at that – and at having been told he’d done a good job. It feels so nice to hear it from Daddy. Nobody ever tells him that he’s done a good job. “Can I wear my Superman shirt?”

“Sure.” Daddy smiles. “Why don’t you go and find some pants and a pull-up, and I’ll cut the tags off your shirt?”

“Okay.” Steve smiles back at him and darts into the bedroom to do as Daddy asked, and he’s got a pair of sweatpants and the pull-up ready next to him on the bed by the time Daddy comes in with Steve’s new t-shirt.

“Thank you for listening, Steve.” Daddy bends down and kisses his cheek. “Can you lift your arms up for me?”

It’s a little strange to have someone else undress him and it’s not because Steve’s about to have sex, but Daddy does all the hard work and makes it easy on him, especially the getting dressed again part. Daddy helps Steve step into his pull-up, then repeats the action with his sweatpants.

“You know what I’m thinking?” he asks, tying the drawstring into a neat bow for Steve.

“What, Daddy?”

“I’m thinking we should use that backpack you got for camping and put some supplies in it.”

“Supplies?” Steve holds his arms up again so Daddy can help him with putting on his t-shirt.

“Mm-hm. That way you won’t have to wait until we get home for a change if something happens.” Daddy gives Steve’s Superman shirt a little tug at the hem. “All done, bud. You want to go play?”

“Will you play with me?” he asks, suddenly a little shy.

“Sure I will.” Daddy kisses his cheek again. “Just let me get some things together real quick, in case we need to go out again soon. I don’t want to forget.”

Steve waits for a couple of minutes for Daddy to find the backpack and put in several pull-ups, an extra pair of pants, a pair of socks, and a travel pack of wipes. He’d bought that and a regular-sized box of them at Target, which would have bothered Steve more if they hadn’t gone through the self-checkout lane.

“It’ll have to do for now. I’ll put in an order later for the rest of what we need,” Daddy says, zipping up the backpack and tossing it onto the armchair in the corner by the window. “What do you want to try first?”

“Cars,” Steve decides instantly, and he holds his arms out. “Up?”

Daddy picks him up and sets Steve on his hip, and Steve immediately melts against him. In Daddy’s arms, he’s almost as tall as he used to be, and it’s so comfortable that he almost doesn’t want to be put down. But it’s okay when he is, because Daddy joins him on the living room carpet right away, reaching into the relevant shopping bag and pulling out the box of race cars.

“You know, these are really cool, Stevie,” Daddy says, opening the box and then handing it to him.

“Uh-huh.” Steve grins, upending it onto the floor and watching six wooden cars come tumbling out. The first thing he does is grab the nearest one and send it crashing into the coffee table, cracking up when it flips over upon impact. “Now you,” he says, nudging one toward Daddy.

“You want me to crash it into the table?”

“Yeah!”

They play cars until Daddy looks up at the clock and realizes he should start cooking dinner if they want to eat before it gets late. “Would you like to help me make dinner?” he asks Steve. “Or would you like to color?”

“Can I color in the kitchen?”

“Of course.”

“Okay!”

“First I’d like you to pick up your race cars and put them under the coffee table where nobody can trip and hurt themselves on one,” Daddy says. “We can figure out where everything else goes after we finish eating.”

He has to scoot around the carpet on his knees to gather all six cars and place them where Daddy had asked, making sure that they’re lined up in a neat row. “All done!” Steve announces and dives into a Target bag for the coloring book and huge box of crayons they’d bought.

“Thank you, Stevie.” Daddy scoops him up and carries him into the kitchen, gently depositing Steve into a kitchen chair that faces the stove, so Steve can see him while he cooks.

“What’re we gonna eat?” he asks, not minding that for once his feet are dangling when he’s sitting with his back against the chair.

“I thought we could have some chili mac and steamed broccoli. How’s that sound, buddy?”

Steve makes a face at the latter. “ _Ugh_.”

“But you like broccoli, Steve. You just had some over the weekend.”

“ _Yuck_ ,” he clarifies, flipping through the coloring book to look for a good page to start working on.

Daddy rolls his eyes a little, but he’s smiling. “Okay, picky. How about snap peas?”

Now _those_ sound good tonight, and Steve nods enthusiastically. He holds up the book when he finds the right page; it has a lion that looks like the one Daddy bought for him today. “I’m gonna color this one, Daddy.”

“Good choice! I like it.”

And then he leaves Steve to it, gathering ingredients from the cupboards and fridge to start making dinner. Steve thinks that maybe next time he will help cook if Daddy asks, nibbling on a piece of raw bell pepper that Daddy hands to him, a leftover bit from chopping veggies for the chili mac.

“It’s gonna be ready in about five minutes,” he tells Steve once the snap peas are safely enclosed in the steamer. “So you know what that means?”

“That we’re eating in five minutes?”

“Yes. And that means I need for you to set aside what you’re working on and come wash your hands very soon.”

“How soon?” Steve’s just started in on the lion’s mane and it looks all funny half-colored in.

“Right-about-now-soon.”

“But I’m not done yet,” he says, still holding the burnt-umber crayon he’d selected only a moment before.

“I know. But you can go right back to it after we’ve eaten and cleaned up the living room,” Daddy assures him.

“Do I _have_ to?”

“Yes, Steve, you have to.”

Steve sighs dramatically and exaggerates every move as he closes the coloring book and puts the crayons he’d been using back into the box so he can go to the sink and wash his hands. Daddy helps him with that while ignoring what Steve considers to be a very clear message about how he feels, and soon they’re sitting at the kitchen table and eating, listening to a baseball game on the radio. This is what they usually do for dinner anyway, because it’s weird to eat in front of a TV even after nine years of getting used to them. But the radio is familiar to him and Daddy both.

He tries hard to not make a mess and largely succeeds, although Steve still has to suffer the indignity of Daddy taking a napkin to his hands and mouth. He tries squirming away to absolutely no effect and whines, “ _Stooooop_.”

Daddy pays him no mind. “Hey, I’m gonna get the pots soaking and load the dishwasher. Can you look in the Target bags and make sure we put all your new clothes in the bedroom, please?”

“Okay, Daddy.” Steve grabs his stuff and goes out to the living room to do as he’s asked, finding one bag with a few t-shirts inside. By the time he comes back, Daddy’s just walking out of the kitchen. “Found one,” he announces.

“Thank you for looking. That was a big help,” Daddy says with a smile. “I thought we could put the puzzles and board games on the shelf in the coat closet, and we’ll have to get a storage box for your blocks and cars and stuff.”

“Like my train set?”

“Exactly like that. We can keep them on the dining room table for now. What about your animals?”

“Um.” Steve thinks for a moment or two. “Can I have them in our room?”

“Sure, Stevie. But you can only bring one to bed, okay? I don’t think there’s enough room for all of us otherwise.”

Just one? But he likes all three of them, that’s why Steve had picked them out. “Do I hafta choose now?”

“No, not right now. Just before we go to sleep,” Daddy says. “Can you help me move these bags?”

“I can do it,” Steve says proudly, already forgetting about his stuffed animals, and grabs a bag.

Once that task has been completed and it’s much easier to walk around the living room without having to look where they’re going, Steve grabs his coloring book and crayons from the coffee table where he’d set them down earlier. He would try to sit on the floor in front of the coffee table to color, but it’s too tall, and kneeling makes his knees hurt after a while. So Steve settles for the next best option, which is to sprawl on the carpet closer to the TV, propping himself up on his elbows.

Daddy, meanwhile, takes advantage of the sofa and stretches out on it as much as he possibly can, picking up the remote to scroll through the TV guide until he finds _Bob’s Burgers_ , which they both like. And Daddy hasn’t caught up on all of it yet; he’d missed three whole seasons and the series finale while he was gone. Steve watches the opening credits just to see the funny company names they came up with for this episode and then goes back to coloring his lion. It’s not a complicated drawing, but he wants to take his time so that he can give it to Daddy later.

“Doing okay down there?” Daddy asks after the second episode goes to its first commercial break.

“Uh-huh.”

“How about a potty break?”

“I don’t have to go,” Steve says automatically before realizing that he actually does have to go. And it’s fairly urgent. _How did that happen so fast?_ he wonders.

“Well, I do. Come on and try.” Daddy gets up and offers his hands for Steve to help him to his feet.

He’s glad that Daddy makes him go because he really couldn’t have held on until he finished the page, and it’s quicker to just go in the potty because then he doesn’t need to waste time getting changed. Daddy goes too, and then they wash their hands. Steve’s surprised by Daddy picking him up without being asked, but he enjoys it no less as he’s carried back out to the living room to finish his work.

By the time the next episode is at the halfway point, he’s finished with the lion. It looks good, and he’s even added a few more details of his own into the picture. Now it’s time to show Daddy, so Steve gets up and sits on the arm of the sofa next to him. “Look, Daddy!”

“Very nice, Stevie,” Daddy says. “I like the new things you’ve added to it, like the clouds up here.” Daddy taps the top of the page. “And the elephants you put in the background.”

“It’s for you,” he tells Daddy, feeling suddenly shy. Which is silly; Steve’s always showing him drawings and sketches when he’s an adult.

“It is? Thank you! I love it.” Daddy smiles real big at him. “I’m gonna put this on the fridge so I can see it when I’m cooking.”

“But we don’t have any magnets,” Steve points out.

“Then we’ll just have to get some, won’t we? But for now, I think scotch tape will work just fine.”

“Are you gonna do it now?”

“Why not? Let’s go.”

Steve follows him into the kitchen, where Daddy spends a few moments looking for just the right place on the refrigerator to put up the coloring page before finally making a decision.

“It looks really good here, doesn’t it?” Daddy asks, pulling Steve into his side for a warm hug.

“Uh-huh.” Steve rests his head against Daddy’s shoulder. “Can we watch a movie?”

“Sure, kiddo. What would you like to see?”

“Lego Batman?” He’d seen it available on one of the streaming services the last time he was exploring the kids’ movie section while Bucky was gone, and it looks funny.

“Lego Batman it is.”

Daddy gets them each a glass of water before they go back into the living room, and the second he sits down, Steve’s hurtling himself into his lap. Daddy makes a surprised little “oof” noise, which makes Steve giggle. He knows that he’s not _that_ heavy.

“Yeah, you think that’s funny, huh?” Daddy asks, but he’s grinning. “You almost crushed my poor legs.”

“Did not!”

“Did too.” He tickles Steve’s ribs lightly to make him shriek with laughter but stops well before it gets uncomfortable.

“The _movie_ , Daddy,” Steve reminds him.

“So impatient,” Daddy teases. “Hand me the remote, please?”

Steve does. Daddy finds the movie and then wraps his arms around Steve’s waist to keep him close. It’s so nice to sit with him like this; it’s safe and it’s warm and it’s comfortable, things that have been absent from Steve’s life for way too long now. It’s a miracle that he makes it through the movie without falling asleep, he’s so cozy. When Daddy tells him it’s time for bed after it’s over, he doesn’t protest at all – Steve’s actually pretty tired after such a long day. The only thing he asks for is his stuffed lion, which appears in his arms within seconds of making the request.

The next morning, Steve wakes up feeling lighter than he has in…well, years, actually, if he’s honest with himself. He smiles as he looks over at Bucky, who’s still passed out and snoring lightly. Bucky would be so annoyed if he could see himself right now; he’s pretty much whatever the opposite of sexy is with his mouth hanging open and half hanging off the bed, limbs flung everywhere.

Steve gets up to pee and take off last night’s still-dry pull-up, stashing it in the cabinet under the sink; he can just wear it next time. He doesn’t bother to put on underwear before sliding back into bed in his t-shirt and pajama pants. Steve puts on his reading glasses, reaches for his tablet, and rearranges his pillow against the headboard so that he can read more comfortably until Bucky wakes up half an hour later.

“Oh look, you’re among the land of the living again,” Steve says, managing to keep a straight face for as long as it takes to say that.

Bucky squints at the alarm clock on Steve’s bedside table. “It’s not even 8:00 yet.”

“Slacker.”

“Not everyone likes to be up before the asscrack of dawn like you, Steve.”

“I have _not_ been awake since the asscrack of dawn.”

“Oh, really?”

“I woke up around 7:15.”

“Wow, you really slept in there.” Bucky’s grinning now.

“It was a good sleep,” Steve says. “What about you?”

“Pretty good.”

“So, um. I wanted to say thanks for yesterday. It was really fun,” he tells Bucky after a few minutes of companionable silence.

“It _was_ really fun,” Bucky agrees. “We’ll have to do it again soon. I like it when you let me take care of you. And it helps that you’re so damn cute when you’re little.”

“I am not cute,” he says automatically. Steve’s heard that from one too many well-meaning people over the past several months.

“Yeah, you are. It’s pretty hard to say no to you, actually.”

“What about now?”

“What _about_ now?”

“I was gonna ask if you wanted to have morning sex.”

“When do I ever not want morning sex?”

Steve just grins back at him and slides his hand into Bucky’s boxer shorts.

\--

When Bucky had said he was going to go nuts with buying stuff for little Steve, he hadn’t been kidding. Over the next week after their first age play session, Steve answers the door for deliveries just about every day. Bucky doesn’t let him see any of it, though, whisking the boxes out of his hands and stashing them in the spare bedroom.

“Oh, come on, why does it have to be such a big secret?” he wants to know on day eight.

“It’s not a secret, it’s a _surprise_. Besides, what would you want with this stuff when you’re an adult?”

“I’m just curious, is all.”

“You’ll find out when the time comes.”

“You’re the worst, Bucky.”

“You love me.”

“In spite of my best instincts, yeah.”

Unfortunately for Steve, he doesn’t have to wait very long to find out what all those interesting things are contained in those boxes, because a particularly bad asthma attack lands him in the emergency room three days after the last package arrives. He’s grateful that at least they’d been close to the VA Medical Center when it hit and his rescue inhaler wasn’t working. Plus, they tell him that they’re letting him go after several hours of nebulizer treatments, which _do_ work the way they’re supposed to.

Bucky plants himself right by Steve’s side the entire time. He doesn’t say much, but Steve’s glad for his presence, because he hates hospitals and everything about them; even the five hours they spend in the ER sets him on edge by the time the doctor clears him for release.

“I hate this,” he mumbles, filling out yet another discharge form.

“I know,” Bucky says.

“I wanna go home, Bucky.” Steve surprises himself by sliding into the voice he uses when he’s little; he doesn’t pitch it higher or fake a lisp or anything like that, but it’s softer around the edges, less guarded.

“We’re gonna leave real soon, Steve,” Bucky answers and pats his shoulder.

“I wanna leave _now_.” There it is again.

“Let’s get your shoes on so we can be ready as soon as the nurse comes back to pick up the paperwork, okay?” Bucky suggests, already bending down to nab Steve’s Converse sneakers from under the hospital bed.

“Okay.”

Bucky leans in and says into Steve’s good ear, quietly and in his Daddy voice, “Are you feeling little right now, Steve?”

He nods, relieved that Bucky’s picked up on it.

“Then let’s make sure we’re ready to get out of here,” he says, and starts working the scuffed high-tops onto Steve’s feet, tying the laces in neat bows. “How’s that feel?”

“Good.”

“Not too tight?”

“Uh-uh.”

“Good. Hey, look, here comes Nurse Mathis.”

And in a matter of minutes, they’re in a taxi headed for home – Daddy hadn’t wanted to wait for an Uber, so he’d hailed the first cab they saw – and Steve’s curled up into his side. The weather is pleasant, especially for a mid-June evening in New York, but he can’t seem to stop shivering. He’s exhausted and hungry, too, which doesn’t help matters. Steve’s never done well with that, despite having grown up with constant hunger as a normal state of being.

Daddy picks him up and carries him as soon as they’re inside the apartment building; the lobby is mercifully free of other residents, and the security guard must be on patrol or a bathroom break or something, so nobody sees them. It’s nice to be carried, especially because Steve’s so tired, and he melts into Daddy’s warmth as the elevator brings them to their floor.

“First things first, let’s have something to eat. How about some sandwiches?” Daddy says, pressing the palm of his right hand to the high-tech lock on their front door until the reader turns green and the door swings open. Tony had insisted on installing it, and it hadn’t sounded like the worst idea in the world, so they’d let him. And now they don’t have to worry about losing their house keys.

“Ham and cheese?” Those are his favorite.

“With mustard?”

“Uh-huh.”

“I think that sounds great, kiddo.” Daddy kisses his cheek just as they reach the kitchen. “I’m gonna need to set you down for a bit while I make the sandwiches.”

Steve nods, and he’s promptly deposited in a chair that faces the window so he can look at the water while dinner gets made. Daddy puts on the radio in the kitchen so they can listen to the Mets game – it just isn’t the same rooting for the Dodgers now that they’re in Los Angeles – as he puts the sandwiches together. Daddy even finds some leftover fruit salad and adds carrot sticks to their plates.

“How’d you like to see what’s in those boxes?” Daddy asks him once they’re finished eating.

Steve had almost forgotten about them, and he even submits to the napkin Daddy uses to get his face and hands clean. “Yeah!”

“All right, hang on one second.” Daddy puts their plates and water glasses into the dishwasher and then picks him up again to take him into the spare bedroom where everything’s been kept.

It had been one thing to see the individual boxes come into their apartment, but it’s quite another to see them stacked up on top of each other, and Steve’s eyes go wide as Daddy starts slicing the packing tape with his pocket knife. (Well, Daddy calls it a pocket knife. Steve calls it a tactical dagger. They’ve agreed to disagree on that.) Do they even have room for all of this?

Daddy puts two opened boxes on the bed next to Steve. “Go ahead and take a look,” he says. “You can pick what you want to wear tonight from these.”

Steve’s natural curiosity overrides his mild anxiety and he pulls back the flaps as instructed, finding diapers in one box and pull-ups in the other, both with variety of prints.

“Oh!” he breathes. They’re so soft, and thicker than the drugstore pull-ups he’s been wearing. They’re definitely not for grownups — at least, not in the way most people would think. Steve just hopes they aren’t _too_ thick for when they start going out more.

“So these are okay, then?” Daddy’s grinning.

“Yes!” He grabs a pull-up with jungle animals on it. One of them is a lion like the page Daddy’s got hanging on the fridge. Steve _actually_ wants a diaper, but maybe that’s better for bedtime. He should at least try to use the potty until then, even though he’s worn out from the unexpected ER visit. Can’t have Daddy thinking he’s being a baby after all that.

“Then you should look in here.”

The third box has several more superhero shirts – including one that looks like Sam’s Captain America suit – and comfy drawstring pants good for playing in. And fluffy, warm pajamas that are all one piece and zip up the front; they look like an elephant. It’s too warm to wear that tonight, so Steve sets aside a Flash t-shirt and a gray pair of pants instead. But he loves the onesie and can’t wait for it to get cold enough to wear it as much as he wants.

“How about we get you changed now?” Daddy suggests, only it’s not really a suggestion so much as it is a pronouncement on what they’re going to do. “Then we’ll go back to looking through everything.”

Steve’s mildly disappointed to put the discoveries on hold, but he nods and lets Daddy help him put on his new outfit. The pull-up is thick enough that it keeps him from being able to close his legs all the way, but not enough that it shows too much through his flannel pants. But oh, does it feel like security.

“What’s next?” He feels light again, the way he’d felt after the first time he and Daddy had played, and bounces on the edge of the bed a few times.

“Open it and see.”

This box contains several sippy cups that Daddy tells him change color with the temperature of what’s inside, a durable plastic plate and bowl with Bugs Bunny on them, some plastic multi-colored measuring cups and spoons, and a blue-and-red striped apron. At the bottom is a packet of pacifiers in primary colors and a set of clips that goes with them.

Steve blushes when he finds those. “Daddy, m’not a baby!”

“I know you’re not a baby. You’re my good boy, aren’t you?” Daddy sits down next to Steve and plants a noisy smooch on his cheek.

His blush intensifies, but only because nobody’s called him that since he was young. “Uh-huh.”

“It isn’t only babies who use these. But you don’t have to if you don’t want to,” Daddy reassures him. 

“Maybe.” Steve’s definitely gonna try them out, but not tonight. Daddy doesn’t have to know that yet.

“Next up!” Daddy hands him yet another box.

Steve discovers a changing pad, a few tubes of diaper cream, and baby powder in that one. The changing pad has clouds and suns on it, which he likes, especially because they’ve all got smiley faces. Then there’s the last box, and it’s _heavy_ , but that’s because it’s full of books. There’s Shel Silverstein and Dr. Seuss and Maurice Sendak and Eric Carle, something called _The Princess Bride_ , and Frog and Toad, plus the first Harry Potter book.

“So, what do you think? Do we have enough to keep you going for now?” Daddy’s sitting next to him again, hooking his chin over Steve’s shoulder.

Steve flips through _Where the Wild Things Are_. Gosh, there’s just so much _stuff_ , and it’s all for him. “Yeah!”

“So you like it?”

“I _love_ it. Thank you, Daddy.” Steve tosses the book back onto the pile so he can throw his arms around Daddy, hugging him tight.

“You’re welcome, birdie.”

“Can we read tonight?”

“Of course. We’ll find new places for all this stuff tomorrow after you’ve had some rest. What book do you want to read first?”

“What’s _The Princess Bride_?” he wants to know.

“I don’t know a lot about it other than that Scott said it’s Cassie’s favorite. As far as I _do_ know, it’s about a pirate named Westley and a farmgirl called Buttercup and all their adventures.”

“Those are some funny names, Daddy.”

“Yes, they are. Hold this, please,” he agrees and hands the book to Steve, then scoops him up.

They wind up in the recliner chair in the living room, Steve on his lap and cuddled close as Daddy starts reading aloud and rocking them both. This is probably the best feeling in the world, he decides. Saving people had felt good too, but that had been Steve’s job. One he had done willingly, for the most part, but still a job and a thankless one at that. Also, Daddy is _great_ at reading. He does all the voices and puts a lot of inflection into the words so that it sounds more like a story and not just saying words on a page. Steve’s thumb inches its way into its mouth, and he lets his eyes close. He doesn’t fall asleep; it’s just easier to imagine everything happening this way. Maybe when he’s big again he’ll draw some of the scenes from the book. It’s surprisingly funny and makes them both laugh out loud more than once.

Steve realizes after a while that he needs to go potty, but he doesn’t want Daddy to stop reading just yet because they’re in the middle of a chapter. He’ll wait until the end of it to ask for a break. He does okay for a few more pages, at which point he starts fidgeting in Daddy’s lap in an effort to keep dry.

Daddy pauses after about a minute of that. “Hey, love, do you need to go potty?”

He takes his thumb out of his mouth. It’s starting to get kind of wrinkly anyway. “Uh-uh.”

“You sure? You’re awfully squirmy, Stevie.”

“I can hold it,” he says, and taps the page they’re on. “What does Westley say next?”

Daddy raises an eyebrow but keeps reading, and Steve makes himself stop fidgeting, holding himself through his pull-up instead. And that works okay for the next few minutes, as long as he doesn’t think about how bad he has to go. How is it when Steve’s little he either doesn’t have to go at all or he’s on the verge of an accident? His efforts are all in vain, because pretty soon after, he loses control and the floodgates open.

If Daddy didn’t already know what was happening, he certainly would by the way the tension leaves Steve’s body, and he slumps back against Daddy. The pull-up hadn’t been noticeable before, but it is now. Steve’s actually pretty surprised by how much and how fast it swells up, way more than the boring plain ones for grown-ups  – and that he hasn’t leaked. Whew. That would’ve been _really_ bad of him. It’s bad enough already that he didn’t go to the potty when he should have.

Daddy uses the dust jacket to mark his place in the book and puts it down on the side table. Steve sneaks a peek backward as he does so, hoping that he isn’t mad. But Daddy looks the same as he always does.

“I think that’s our cue to get ready for bed,” he says, also sounding the same as he always does.

“Already?”

“It’s getting late and I know you’re tired out from today, Stevie. Some extra sleep ought to do you good.” Daddy ruffles his hair. “So we’re going to get you changed and then we’ll brush our teeth. After I put on my pajamas, it’s lights out.”

“I’m sorry, Daddy,” Steve tells him, the heat rising in his cheeks once again. His ears feel like they’re on fire.

“You don’t have to be sorry. That’s why you’re wearing protection.” Daddy hugs him again and then he carries Steve into their bedroom. “Do you want another pull-up for bed?”

Steve shakes his head.

“Okay. I’ll be right back.” Daddy drops a kiss on his forehead and leaves, returning a minute later with the changing pad, a diaper with starbursts all over it, and the baby powder. He retrieves the wipes from their bathroom and then starts the process of getting Steve changed.

“Look how squishy you are,” he teases Steve, poking at the outside of the soaked pull-up before ripping it down the sides.

“M’not a baby,” Steve reminds him, which is only a little bit true; he does feel even younger now that he requires a diaper change out of necessity.

“Bigger boys have accidents too,” is all Daddy says, pulling a wipe out of the box. “And you really are pretty squishy, kiddo.”

Steve yelps when the wipe makes contact with his skin. “Cold!”

“It’s room-temperature.”

He glares up at Daddy, who looks very much like he’s trying not to laugh. “It’s _cold_.”

“Sorry. We’re almost done.” Daddy continues cleaning him up anyway, because he is _not_ sorry. His touch is gentle as he rubs in some powder and even as he’s holding Steve’s legs up to get the diaper underneath his bottom. He fastens the diaper’s tapes and pats him on the knee when he’s finished. “See?”

Steve lets out a long, belabored sigh that has absolutely no effect on Daddy. “I guess.”

“C’mon, let’s get your pants back on so we can brush our teeth.”

“I’ll do it.” And he does, because his legs were getting almost as chilly as the wipe had been. Steve folds his arms and glares at Daddy some more from his seat on the edge of the bed.

“Oh, come on, Steve. You’d have been a lot more uncomfortable if you’d stayed in that wet pull-up.””

Steve knows he’s right but still makes a point of dragging his feet into the bathroom anyway, but he’s over it by the time they snuggle up together in bed.

“I know today was really scary for you,” Daddy tells him, wrapped around Steve as the big spoon. “I’m proud of the way you handled it.”

“But I didn’t do anything,” he says, bewildered.

“Yes, you did. You listened to the doctor and the nurses when they told you what to do, and you let people help you instead of pushing them away. That’s a hard thing to do, but you did it anyway. You’re very brave.”

“Oh.” Steve hadn’t thought about it like that.

“You did good, sunshine.” Daddy squeezes him just the way he likes, not too hard but not like he’s made out of glass, either.

“Thank you for helping me,” he whispers. “It _was_ scary.”

“It was,” Daddy agrees. “And I’m always gonna be here to help you through the scary times.”

“You won’t leave me again?” Not that Daddy had had much of a choice the last few times, but still.

“Never.”

“Never ever?”

“Never ever.” Daddy laces their hands together.

“Good.”

And then Steve’s asleep, just like that.

**Author's Note:**

> There will be more - this was just the beginning. Thanks for reading!


End file.
